i am sipping on a ginger shaker (that's what the artsy corner coffeebar calls flavored iced coffee) and it's so delicious. julie's here reading game of thrones and some bob marley is playing through the speakers. i have purple paint on my fingers and glitter sticking to my arm. that could literally explain the whole week.
this week was a different one. so i guess i'm going to do the whole "day by day" thing to give this post a little structure.
sunday: i actually don't remember much about this day. i was pretty distracted with the fact that i had gotten a letter/sentiment-filled package from david on saturday. it was super sweet and i absolutely loved it, but it made me miss him a lot more than i thought i could. (this matters, i promise. it comes into play later) julie and i co-counseled in cabin one (white fawn) this week with eleven and twelve-year-olds. it was the makings of an awesome week. my favorite age group, a fantastic co, and staying in the old cabins. old cabins meant taking the long walk to the bathhouse and uneven floors and creaky everything and less space. they are my favorite to stay in, though. julie and i decided (as i taped a billion pictures by my bed) that we were going to try for honor cabin this week. we also planned on doing an initiation/cabin unity thing. nikki was our jr. counselor and she was super game for anything. so the kids got here. the first girl that got to our cabin was dropped off by her brother. he didn't speak to anyone and practically through gabby out of his car. she instantly started complaining and had an attitude. julie and i exchanged glances and my confidence in the week's greatness began to fade. sunday went pretty much as usual, the girls were awkward, julie and i were crazy, and we ate spaghetti for dinner. the weirdest thing about our cabin was although we had girls who were relatively the same age group, they were vastly different sizes. we had little tiny girls and girls who looked like they were my age. it was crazy. we went to bed without a cabin devotion this night because all of us were incredibly exhausted.
monday: monday was pretty fun. nikki, julie, and i spent the morning working on feather headdresses for our candlelight vigil/initiation that we had planned. i also started reading kurt vonnegut's "slaughterhouse five". his writing style is delightful and quick. there is nothing i like more than someone who can really write. the cabin of girls continued to be a little disconnected. the biggest problem was that many of the girls came together as friends. so there were little pairs and such instead of one big group of girls who came by themselves. but julie and i had a plan for that. this day was also spent pretty distracted by thoughts of david and school this fall and such. don't hate me for being THAT GIRL. anyway, we let the girls go to sleep a little earlier than usual. at approximately 12:45 a.m., nikki, julie, and i woke up. we donned war paint, grabbed headdresses and candles, and sent jenny and sarah to the pine forest. they were armed with glitter. we snuck into the cabin and one by one woke the girls up. we told them to not panic, grab a candle, and follow us to the pine forest. they were all a little freaked out. we then made our way to the pine forest. some super secret things took place in the pine forest that i can't really talk about. we let the girls go to sleep after those secret things.
tuesday: i skipped counselor meeting and polar bearing this morning. my body was just like "no" and i had to listen/submit. all the girls were pretty torn on if they loved or hated the candlelight vigil this morning...but it gave them something to talk about. i spent most of this day writing letters, being distracted, and struggling to bond with the girls. they were all a lot of fun, but i kept feeling super tired and not able to join into their fun. julie and i looked at eachother halfway through the day and were just like "this is going to be a weird week." this night i stopped communicating with david because i was so distracted. it's crazy how scattered i can get when someone's on my mind. cabin devotions were a struggle and i felt kind of defeated. my porch talk went really well, though. maggie (the girl i took out) is a super sweetheart who really loves Jesus. she encouraged me greatly. this night my alarm went off at 12:45 (from monday) and i couldn't find my phone to turn it off. julie sat up in bed and yelled WHY IS IT SO LOUD!? i almost started laughing because julie is always loud when she first wakes up.
wednesday: this was an interesting day. it started too early. i woke up to make salt dough and eat fruit with jenny. i taught arts&crafts this week and was hoping for it to be the best. nikki woke up the girls, but barely any of them wanted to polar bear. it was clear to all of us that honor cabin was becoming a dream that could not be realized, so focusing during personal devotion time became impossible. the girls were starting to become friends, though. and that was nice to watch. activities went really well. the kiddos made awesome sculptures. the plan was for me to bake them, them to paint them, and then have a mock gallery opening on friday. lunch was yummy. then came rest hour. rest hour was so needed. i was so sleepy and needed to rest. so i tried to sleep. i kept bugging the girls to keep quiet...but something kept making noise. one girl was putting game together in her bunk. another girl kept coughing. when everything was relatively quiet, there still was noise. i quickly realized it was one of the bunks that one of the littlest girls was in. so did julie. she jumped up and tried to move the bed and was like "WHY IS IT CREAKING!? SHE IS NOT EVEN MOVING!!" i lost it. i laid on the floor and just giggled to myself as i watched the girls trying to pass notes in slow-motion (to make sure no noise was made). rest hour was a complete wash. this afternoon was our turn to go on the mountain hike. i love the mountain hike, but not many people (especially campers) do. we loaded up and began hiking. i taught chad how to put his hair in a bun and we all laughed as we walked. then the storm came. the sky turned dark and it was beautiful. the campers began to get nervous. one of my girls (named grace) began freaking out on me. she told me that i was trying to kill her and begged me not to make her do the hike. grace was obviously really tired/homesick so i tried to talk some sense into her. it didn't work. she was almost in hysterics. finally, ryan decided to turn back and get the bus for us to ride in. chad went to wait for ryan, but he didn't have a walkie. so i volunteered to run it down the trail for him. as i sprinted down the trail in the light rain, grace (quite dramatically) yelled after me "TAKE ME WITH YOUUU." chad and i watched the storm and smelled the rain. it was beautiful. we all rode back in the bus and sprinted to our cabins during the downpour. lightning struck and thunder rolled and everything was washed with rain. i ran to the craft cabin to try to save the salt-dough sculptures (i had so foolishly left them on the porch tables to dry). when i got to the cabin (i was kind of feeling like a hero at this point) i took the soggy sculptures (one by one) into safety. then we all played in huge puddles and stared at the flooding gorge. it was pretty and awe-inspiring and incredibly fun. banquet was approaching, so we got ready. we wore cozy clothes and had a dance party in the cabin. it was probably the most laid-back banquet i've ever been apart of. post banquet we passed frisbee and giggled a lot. campfire was nice, even though i learned i was a jerk right before it. cabin devotions went the same as tuesday night. my porch talk time was really enjoyable this night. i took out jessie. she is a 12 year old girl with a beautiful face and a really quiet demeanor. her hair is also really really beautiful. she is a strong christian who is obviously leading a lot of hear friends. i loved getting to learn from her.
thursday: this day was "sleep in" day! this meant i woke up at 6:30 instead of 5. yayyy. haha but seriously, it was a rough morning. i was so tired. i realized i had been at camp for almost five weeks and i have almost three more. wowee. arts&crafts was kind of a wash for the rest of the week. the sculptures were wet and ruined and so i let the kiddos go crazy with glitter and paint and leather cutouts of hearts and crosses. it ended up being pretty fun, even if it wasn't what i had planned. the funnest part of the day was definitely rest hour. thursday night is always skit night, so the girls needed to plan one. in the past, the counselors get more involved, but julie and i did nothing (nikki had left at this point. she is going through some hard stuff at home, so she just needed to not be at camp) to help them prepare. i wrote letters and did my devotion during rest hour and julie slept. when we were done with our respective tasks, we looked up and all the girls were giggling and working on our skit. the skit was (to be completely honest) pretty terrible. it was a poorly organized american idol knock-off. but they had SO MUCH FUN preparing it that i just couldn't interfere. julie and i smiled and agreed our cabin had finally bonded over something. unit campfire was this night. it was pretty fun to roast marshmallows (i ate eight perfectly cooked marshmallows! all of them were made by really willing campers.) and play with fire. when it was time for the lesson, distractions kept arising. i got really frustrated and felt like i couldn't bring it back in. porch talks were a little frustrating this night, too. it's so difficult when i know a camper has a lot of hard stuff going on in their life, but they don't want to talk about it. anna (my girl) was SO closed and did not want to share anything.
friday: julie and i had asked the girls the night before what their least favorite way of being woken up is. they all said yelling and such. SO of course julie and i woke them up by running into the cabin and screaming. it was so fun. i lost my voice within minutes, but it was so worth it. none of my campers polar beared, but julie and i did! the morning was so so so cold. so i wore a long skirt (for the first time since Haiti!) and reveled in the fact that i also was wearing a warm sweater. at lunch, julie and i acted like queens...until i decided to spit water on paige (one of my girls) because she was being her sassy self...but that's really irrelevant. this rest hour was my favorite ever. the sun was shining at this point and the wind was blowing, so we had rest hour outside. julie and i hung our hammocks and the girls took turns in them and sat with us on blankets. we took pictures and laughed a lot. then it was water day! water day is always fun. this one was especially interesting because there was a dunk tank. dunk tanks are TERRIFYING. i got in it and almost started crying. but you know, anything for the campers. the rest of the night was pretty pleasant. bonfire was full of really honest and beautifully articulated testimonies. the kids always surprise me with their depth of understanding of the love and changing grace of Christ. the stars were beautiful and the air was crisp. THEN came the crazy. julie and i had planned to do two things on the last night: 1)chug a huge pixie stick 2) open club GLITTERRAVE in our cabin and have a dance party. both of those things were a wild success. haha, although the girls were super suspicious when we told them to go to the bath-house. i think they were cautious because of our previous late night adventure. we smeared paint on their faces and threw glowsticks everywhere. it was so fun. the evening ended with a great night of sleep. kind of. oh also we found out that chad was the girl's least favorite counselor. in fact, all of them were scared of him.
saturday/today: counselor meeting was sleepy and full of giggles. julie and i asked chad to scream at our girls to wake them up. it was really hilarious and kind of mean. hahaha. but i loved it. also, at breakfast the girls confessed that the candlelight vigil was one of their favorite things. all the campers left and i changed out of my gross staff shirt into a dress and denim. ah. jenny and i are in a cabin together for the first time ever next week! also some of the best campers ever are coming back, which is awesome. it's rainy outside and i'm about to get hot, strong coffee. i'll be home in a few weeks and see david a few after that. life is pretty nice as of now.
okay so overview time: this week taught me a lot of things. it taught me that sometimes it really is okay to step back and just let the campers have fun. i don't always have to be the best friend of every girl with me. also i learned that missing someone is distracting and sometimes it's best to just cut off communication for a couple days to refresh. i learned that God is love, that love is complex, and that it never ends. i also grew to appreciate the staff this year even more than before. i'll miss 'em a lot. the girls in my cabin were sweet and fun and wonderfully different. and julie's great.
i hope you guys are having a smashing summer.
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